Unemployment decreased 8,100 to 701,500. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work remained steady at 485,900 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased 8,100 to 215,600.

Unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pts to 5.4%.

Participation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 65.1%.

Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 4.6 million hours (0.3%) to 1,723.7 million hours.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE

Release Date

November 2017

14 December 2017

December 2017

18 January 2018

January 2018

15 February 2018

February 2018

22 March 2018

March 2018

19 April 2018

April 2018

17 May 2018

UPDATE ON TIMING OF MAJOR REBENCHMARKING

For an update on the revised timing of the major rebenchmarking please refer to "What's new in the Labour Force". This advice was previously published in the September 2017 issue.

ROUNDING

Estimates of changes shown on the front cover and used in the commentary have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movement obtained from the rounded estimates. The graphs on the front cover also depict unrounded estimates.

SAMPLING ERROR

The estimates in this publication are based on a sample survey. Published estimates and movements are subject to sampling variability. Standard errors give a measure of sampling variability. The interval bounded by two standard errors is the 95% confidence interval, which provides a way of looking at the variability inherent in estimates. There is a 95% chance that the true value of the estimate lies within that interval.

MOVEMENTS IN SEASONALLY ADJUSTED SERIES BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 2017 AND OCTOBER 2017

Monthly change

95% Confidence interval

Total Employment

3 700

-55 700

to

63 100

Total Unemployment

-8 100

-44 500

to

28 300

Unemployment rate

-0.1 pts

-0.3 pts

to

0.1 pts

Participation rate

-0.1 pts

-0.5 pts

to

0.3 pts

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, email <client.services@abs.gov.au> or contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.